By David Hennessy
A short film that deals with themes such as homelessness has just been nominated for an IFTA and finds out this week if it has also got an Oscar nod.
Directed by TJ O’Grady-Peyton, Room Taken follows Isaac, played by Gabriel Adewusi, who is desperate for a place to stay and finds an unexpected answer to his temporary homelessness when he takes refuge in the home of Victoria, an elderly blind woman, without her knowledge.
Victoria is played by the great Irish actress, Bríd Brennan.
The film tackles pressing themes including the challenges faced by asylum seekers and the rising homelessness population in Ireland.
The film has also Colin Farrell come on board as executive producer.
Director TJ O’Grady Peyton, producer Colmán Mac Cionnaith and cast members Bríd Brennan and Gabriel Adewusi joined The Irish World for a panel discussion last week in the lead up to the Oscars announcement.
Bríd: “For a short film, it’s been a very long road full of very great acclaim.
“I suppose you’re always surprised but it’s been wonderful to actually feel that acclaim coming back.
“It feels very good to get that feedback and that acclaim.”
Homelessness numbers continue to climb in Ireland. Do you think that you know this timing of this film is even more important?
TJ: “It’s definitely timely.
“I don’t know if it’s more important but I volunteered in a charity called the Simon Community.
“I volunteered for a year in a social club where people who are sleeping rough could get tea and coffee and sandwiches or soup and then you’d sometimes go out on these runs where you’d give people sleeping rough all these things as well.
“It’s definitely been a conversation that’s constantly on.
“Every year the numbers rise and rise, and it’s not an easy thing to fix obviously but it definitely is a timely tale and if it can contribute to that conversation, that’s a good thing.”
Colmán: “And even with this, the shot of Gabriel or Isaac as he is sleeping rough and he’s out on the street, and it’s cold.
“That’s only down the road from where they hold the Dublin Film Festival.
“But the following year when we were there to attend the film festival, that stretch of road that we filmed with Gabriel, there was a number of tents on it so all of a sudden, it was far too real very quickly.
“So it might not be more important but hopefully we’re able to shine some form of a light onto the issue of homelessness in Ireland, because, because, as TJ says, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
Take us back to the beginning, what about the story pulled you when you first encountered it?
TJ: “I was directing a commercial for the Irish Cancer Society and after I had finished that project, I was speaking with one of the creative directors from the agency, a guy called Michael Whelan, and he had written his first film script.
“I was looking for projects to bring to Screen Ireland.
“But when I read the early draft that Michael had written, I was really moved by the story and I just felt like it was speaking about a lot of things in today’s society all while telling this intimate story.
“I really was excited by the kind of originality of the concept as well.
“So I immediately brought it to Colmán at a production company called Vico Films and they fell in love with the script too and here we are.”
Colmán: “To get those 12 pages, I read them straight away and I was kind of blown away a little bit because it’s hard to get as much across in 12 pages as Michael achieved, and I think TJ did a remarkable job in adapting it for the screen.
“But those initial 12 pages were amazing so it was a really easy yes.
“I think Screen Ireland are a very creative, forward thinking funding authority.
“So while it was a fantastic script, it’s Michael’s first ever script.
“For them to take that chance, despite TJ being a very, very seasoned director, on somebody who’s never written a script before, it shows that they know what they’re looking for and they can see talent when it comes in front of them.
“They don’t look for accolades or years in the industry.”
Bríd: “When I read the script, I thought it was a perfect piece.
“It had this perfection of a wonderful short story and so a lot of it was there in the storytelling, I have to say.
“You apply your imagination to imagining how this woman deals with everyday life without sight and also she lives on her own.
“She’s recently lost her husband so she’s grieving and she’s lonely, but she has- and this is a great attraction when you read a character: She has wonderful spirit and an optimistic take on life and is open to friendship and other people and fun. And wit. She’s got all that and so much of that was there.
“I was also enormously helped by meeting a woman who TJ introduced me to, who is blind and has been blind for years and years, called Delores Cullen and just meeting her fed me enormously because she also had a great spirit and terrific positivity about her and fun and sort of a desire for fun and to use her own wit and to use her intelligence in talking to people and listening.
“So I was fed by a number of sources but also, I think it’s the humanity of it.
“You can really give yourself up to the humanity of the story and the character and my co-actor as well, it was all there really.”
Gabriel: “When I first got it I’m thinking, ‘This has everything that I’m looking for’: It’s funny, it’s full of heart, and everything it does, it does earnestly and it does it honestly.
“I was really drawn to the character, actually both characters because both of them, despite the situations that they’re in, they both still have a tremendous amount of agency which they exercise throughout the entire the entire thing.
“When I read it immediately, like Bríd says, there’s a lot in there that you straight away can latch on to.
“I’m reading that and I’m thinking, ‘I’m an immigrant’.
“Uncertain housing and precarious issues are not an uncommon feature of that experience so that’s something that was immediately very recognisable.
“There’s also a feeling of sometimes debt, maybe debt is the right way to put it, but debt and precarity around considering your status in this position, in this house, in this country as a whole.
“That’s another key part of the immigrant experience especially when you’re brand new and it felt important for me to represent that as much as I could in the film, as well as cultural aspects and making a really clear picture of what the character is coming from.
“It was a no brainer for me.”
TJ: “One of the things that drew me to it was the fact that it was this intimate story that spoke about a lot of big issues in life, that the theme that probably resonates most with me, and the reason probably why I wanted to make it is the theme of grief.
“I feel it’s kind of handled very beautifully with, you know, that climactic emotional scene where Isaac is leaving and Victoria speaks to Martin.
“And when I read that scene script, in the script, I was surprised how moved I was reading a 12 page script, because it’s hard enough to do that in a feature but in a short film to kind of build these characters and then, you know, feel empathy for them. I thought was quite something.
“My father passed away in pre-production. Michael’s brother passed away.
“I don’t want to speak for anyone else but other people in the panel have gone through some tragic things recently as well so it’s definitely a very personal theme for all of us.”
Gabriel: “The thing that really just caught me when I read it is the necessity for a connection, the necessity to be together as human beings.
“The need to have a presence there that you know you can rely on, you can be safe with is so deeply rooted in our instinct as human beings and I think the film does a terrific job of portraying that.
“It’s a really big theme and it’s something that really resonates with me.”
Bríd, a lot of the acting and communication in this film is very non-verbal. Did your character remind you of the character Agnes in Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa?
Brid: “I’ve thought about that so many times because that character of Agnes was such a great listener and that was very much a part of her: Just quietly getting on with her life and listening to everybody else.
“There definitely are similarities then with playing Victoria and her listening because that’s all she can do, is listen as she can no longer see.
“That’s very interesting, actually, to think about that and also the physicality of it was very much a part of that.
“Both those parts are very physical parts in so many ways, the dancing that Agnes does with how she expresses herself and how Victoria has to move through life now that she’s lost her sight also gives it that very strong physicality.
“And those sort of parts, I must say, I do love to play because I love to think about how you use movement, or how you move to express yourself or to tell a story.”
The Oscar nominations will be announced this week.
Having been delayed twice by the LA wildfires, the announcement will be made this Thursday 23 January.
Two Irish shorts- TJ O’Grady Peyton’s Room Taken and Portia A. Buckley’s Clodagh have made it to the short list for Best Live Action Short Film and will hope to secure Oscar nominations.
They both hope to follow in the footsteps of An Irish Goodbye which took the Academy Award in 2023.
